


Fate and Her Perfect Timing

by StupidGenius



Series: Our Destiny, Intertwined [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt Yennefer, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Slash, literally picks up like one second after the season finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StupidGenius/pseuds/StupidGenius
Summary: “What am I supposed to do with a teenage girl?” he asks her.She has no answers for him, but she does nuzzle him affectionately, so that’s something.“Are you talking to your horse?” Ciri asks, heeding peeking into the entrance. He hums.“She’s a great conversationalist.”“Guess that makes one of you.”---People linked by Destiny will always find each other, Geralt understands that now. He just didn't think they would find each other all at once.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Our Destiny, Intertwined [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621027
Comments: 38
Kudos: 2618





	Fate and Her Perfect Timing

**Author's Note:**

> So right after i posted the first part of this series i found [an interactive map of the Netflix timeline](https://www.witchernetflix.com/en-gb) and OH BOY. firs toff - everyone is younger than i thought, except for Jaskier, who is apparently 40 years old in Rare Species. he met Geralt when he was 18???? Yennefer was 14 when she went to Aretuza?? Pavetta was sixteen (16) when she had Ciri???? Calanthe wasn't even 50 yet when she died. Hmm.
> 
> Anway. I'm finding a way to ignore canon. I'm editing the timeline to fit into this fic.
> 
> Also, writing Geralt's POV is very different from Jaskier's.
> 
> Pls Enjoy.

Running from Destiny is a fool’s game.

Geralt knows this now. Jaskier had tried telling him, once, long ago, and he wouldn’t listen. Maybe if he had, it would have saved everyone a lot of heart break. Although, Calanthe is at least partially to blame.

Geralt holds Cirilla in his arms and wonders why he resisted so hard.

“Who’s Yennefer?”

He blinks at her, disoriented.

This rush of emotion is a lot for him. He’s used to repressing every feeling that flits through his brain. Some are harder to keep at bay than others, but none have been as strong as what he feels for her. He can’t exactly put it into words yet. Maybe Jaskier would be able to, if he were here. But thinking of Jaskier is painful, and the moment he starts to go down that road he shakes his head.

“She…” he frowns. “Where did you hear that name?”

“I dreamt of you, calling her.” She stares up at him. She is the picture of her mother, with an angular face and soft green eyes. “Who is she?”

He doesn’t know what to say.

“A sorceress.” He admits. “An…acquaintance.”

He hears, in the distance, the sound of twigs snapping under foot. He didn’t wander far from the farmer’s home, slower than he normally is with one injured leg. It still aches, pulses of pain shooting up his spine, but he’ll be fine in a few days.

“Butcher! Where are you?” The Farmer calls.

“Why is he calling you ‘butcher’?” Cirilla asks him. Her nose wrinkles, face scrunched in confusion.

It’s cute.

Already, having a child has messed with him. Since when has he ever considered anything cute?

~~Since Jaskier, probably.~~

He just grunts in response. He is certainly not explaining Blaviken to her, not now, maybe not _ever_ , who knows.

They walk back to the house as quickly as they can, with Geralt’s limping. She doesn’t ask what happened to him, but he can tell she wants to. Her eyes keep wandering to the cloth wrapped around his thigh and then skittering away, hands fidgeting. He offers her one of his to hold, and it’s small in his. Fragile.

He is, very suddenly, a father. He is all she has left.

 _Fuck_.

The farmer and his wife are still waiting by the cart when they get back. Roach huffs at him, annoyed that he disappeared without her. He pets her softly, an apology.

“Thank you for…everything.” He gets out.

“How did you get our here?” The wife smiles down at Cirilla, nothing but soft and fond, and the princess smiles back and says nothing. The wife smiles at him, too, unafraid the way her husband had been. It’s refreshing, meeting other people who don’t reek of fear around him. “Come on, then, I’ll get you the ale my husband promised you. Get you off that leg for a while.

He follows, but he knows they can’t stay. Not with Nilfgaard so close. He doesn’t know where they are, exactly, but they’re probably not far. The safest place for Cirilla right now would probably be Kaer Morhen, and it will take them weeks to get there. He’ll probably have to get her a disguise, too. Cut her hair, dye it. He knows she probably won’t like that, but it will only be until he’s sure she’s safe. He’ll have to –

He broken out of his revere by a tug on his hand. She’s still holding it, and her eyes lock onto his, firm.

“I saw you.” She says quietly. “In Cintra. The day Nilfgaard came.”

Oh.

“I was there to get you.” He admits.

“That’s why my friend was wearing my dress. Gran didn’t want you to take me. She wanted you to take her instead.” She realizes. “She had you locked up, didn’t she? You’re who they were looking for the night Nilfgaard attacked. The prisoner that escaped.” 

He searches her face for any trace of anger he can find there. He _wants_ to find anger – she should be mad at him. She should be…something.

But she isn’t. Just curious, and frightened of what’s to come.

“She was trying to protect you.” He settles on that, instead of the other things he could say about Calanthe being stubborn and untrusting. Probably not the right thing to say to a girl who’s grandmother just died.

“She always was.” Cirilla says.

“Hmm.”

“Here you are.” The wife – Zola, if he remembers correctly – sets down a tankard in front of him, and gives the princess an affectionate shoulder squeeze. She looks between the two of them and her smile dampens, but doesn’t leave. “You’re going with him, aren’t you?”

Geralt takes a large drink.

“Yes.”

“Fighting monsters on the road isn’t the safest place for a young girl.”

Cirilla looks at him, and he feels something warm bloom in his chest. They’re connected somehow.

“He’s my family.”

Zola doesn’t ask how. She just nods, gives theme both another soft smile, and backs away. He can hear her and her husband talking, the farmer beginning to describe to her his adventure that was the past few days. Geralt downs the rest of his ale as fast as he can, unsure what to do now that he’s found his child surprise and feeling awkward.

He’s not good with kids. He’s not sure how mature thirteen year olds are. Do they still play with toys? Dolls? Do they curse? He did, but he’s a Witcher.

“We should stay for a bit.” Cirilla says into the silence. He frowns.

“Princess –”

“Shhh!” She claps her hand over his mouth, eyes wide, and he stares back at her, surprised.

This has never really happened to him before. The last time Geralt had put his hand over Jaskier’s mouth, he’d licked him, and Geralt seriously doubts the princess would appreciate that.

“It’s Ciri.” She whispers. “But I’ve been telling everyone my name is Fiona.”

He grunts, and gently removes her hand.

“Ciri,” He amends, voice low, “we can’t stay. Nilfgaard is close. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

“I have a…feeling.” She says, vague. He waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t. His brows furrow.

“A ‘feeling’.”

“Yes. We should stay. Just for a few days.” She looks at him, pleading, and grips his free hand tightly. “And you’re injured.”

“I’ll heal.”

“ _Please_ , Geralt.”

‘ _It’s unsafe_ ’ he wants to say. ‘ _there’s no reason for us to stay here. I’ll be completely healed before the week is done._ ’ But what he says, instead, is –

“Okay.”

* * *

Geralt promises the farmer that they’ll be gone in a few days’ time, and to help with whatever needs to be done around his home. Yurga insists that he doesn’t have to do anything, but Geralt has to pay him back somehow. The morning after his arrival finds him out in the stables with the other horses, grooming Roach and feeding her the treats she very well deserves.

“What am I supposed to do with a teenage girl?” he asks her.

She has no answers for him, but she does nuzzle him affectionately, so that’s something.

“Are you talking to your horse?” Ciri asks, head peeking into the entrance. He hums.

“She’s a great conversationalist.”

“Guess that makes one of you.” She giggles, stepping closer. She eyes Roach hesitantly, and he sighs and holds out a hand for her. He guides hers to Roach’s side, who huffs but doesn’t move otherwise.

“She’s my best friend.” He finds himself admitting. Ciri peers up at him.

“You don’t have anyone else?”

He thinks of Jaskier and Yennefer. One who left him a year ago, the other who he left behind in the same day. He remembers the way Jaskier’s face had crumpled when Geralt had yelled at him, the way his eyes shown. By the time he’d stopped wallowing in his misery and gone back down to apologize, the dwarves told him Jaskier had left camp quickly after he’d returned.

“I have you.”

She doesn’t say anything to that.

“Gran never liked you.” She says, out of nowhere. “I never knew your name, but I knew there was a Witcher she didn’t like. When I was little, there used to be a bard that would come play at my birthdays. She hated him, too. Mousesack said it’s because he sang songs about a Witcher. Did you know him?”

Jaskier never told him that he went back to Cintra. There would be times when he went off on his own for a few weeks, maybe even months, but he never said what he did. Geralt rarely asked, but he’d always deflect.

He really was a horrible friend.

“I…”

“Help!”

The cry is barely out before Geralt springs up. He glances back at Ciri, hoping she understands that he wants her to stay put, and hurries out of the stables. There’s someone stumbling out of the trees, smelling of magic and smoke and blood, their dress torn and singed. The farmer and his wife are just making it out of their house by the time Geralt reaches the figure. She stagers when she sees him and he catches her.

“Triss?” He frowns.

“Geralt?”

There’s blood leaking sluggishly from a wound in her shoulder, and dirt over every inch of her.

“What happened?”

“Sodden.” She gasps. “We - we were supposed to hold Sodden until the armies arrived. But –”

“They didn’t.” He guesses. She nods, face contorted in pain.

“I’ll depleted, I can’t - I can’t heal.” She grips his forearms tight. “There are others. My sisters, some of the brotherhood, good people, they need help.”

“This was it. The feeling.” He turns to find Ciri standing not ten feet away, watching. He growls.

“You were supposed to stay inside.”

“You never told me to.” She says primly. She has seemingly no good sense of self-preservation, because she steps closer. If Triss recognizes the princess, she says nothing about it. Zola examines the scene with wide eyes, and gestures for them to come inside.

“Come, come, I have something to help with your wounds inside.”

Geralt all but carries Triss into the house, her feet dragging on the floor. Ciri follows, close but not within arm’s reach, ever curious. He’ll have to talk to her later. Usually Jaskier knew when to stay behind and when to run with just one of Geralt’s looks.

He really _needs_ to stop thinking about Jaskier.

They settle her down in Ciri’s bed, and Zola darts off to find her sewing kit. Geralt hovers anxiously, unsure what to do. He should take Ciri and run. The fort is close - only a day’s travel. If Nilfgaard is there, Ciri can’t be anywhere near them.

“What happened?” He gets out.

“I kept them at bay as long as I could. But Fringilla is using dark magics. She infiltrated our camp, turned a few of our own against us.” She shakes her head. “Yennefer told me to run and I –”

“Yennefer.” Geralt feels ice flood his veins.

Yennefer was there. _Is_ there, at Sodden.

“You _do_ know her.” Triss gives a pained smile. “I thought so, but she wouldn’t say.”

His mind races. She told Triss to run, and he knows the woman before him now to be a pretty powerful sorceress. Most of the mages of Aretuza are. So if she told her to run, that the threat they were up against was dangerous enough that she might not have made it out alive.

He can’t let her die.

“Is the battle over?”

“I... I don’t know.” Triss says. She’s clearly exhausted, eyelids drooping. Geralt suppresses a frustrated snarl and turns back to Ciri. She looks determined, which probably isn’t a good sign.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No.” He growls.

“Yes!”

“You’re in enough danger as it is, I’m not delivering you right to them.”

“I’m not leaving you after I just found you!” She snaps, hands curling into fists. He wants to snap back, and snarl like a beast until she leaves him alone, but he doesn’t. That’s not how he should handle this, he knows, _he knows_. He places his hands on her shoulders and looks her in the eyes.

“I promised I would protect you. If I bring you with me, I break that promise.”

“If you’re with me, Nilfgaard will never get me.” She whispers. “I’m going.”

 _Fuck_.

* * *

Ciri goes with him.

He tries his best to dissuade her, but her last shout at him causes the windows to rattle, and he recognizes that magic. If she’s anything like her mother had been, it’s probably best not to argue with her anymore. Not until she learns to control it. The thought of putting her in danger makes him frustrated, but it’s probably safer than leaving her unprotected and having her sneak away to find him.

The journey to the fort is not a long one.

They break the tree line before nightfall, and Geralt pulls Roach to an abrupt halt.

“Oh.” Ciri breathes weakly.

the sky is dark grey with smoke and soot before them. He hadn’t noticed much before, while they were under the cover of trees, but he’d smelled the smoke. The ground is scorched, brunt debris everywhere, and the parts of the fort he can see through the fog are crumbling in places. There are bodies burnt to a crisp spread throughout. Ciri tightens her hold on his hands in front of her.

“It’s over.” He rumbles.

He just can’t tell who won.

He can hear _something_ moving in the field, see shapes in the fog. He slides off roach and keeps hold of her reigns. If something should happen, she’ll get Ciri to safety just fine without him. he moves a few steps closer, on guard.

A woman appears from the smoke.

She’s a sorceress, no doubt, and would probably look very elegant if her hair wasn’t falling out of her up-do and face covered in dirt and soot. She looks somewhat dazed, more like she was wandering about the field without purpose than going to inspect them. She pauses when Geralt slide his sword off his back.

“You’re a Witcher.” She rasps.

“Hmm.”

“We’re looking for Yennefer.” Ciri speaks up. Geralt glances at her – a warning. She leans forward. “I saw her, in my dream. She was calling for her.”

“Yennefer.” The woman’s eyes widen. “Yennefer. I…I haven’t see her yet. She…” she looks around, a shaky hand coming up to her mouth. “I don’t know how…”

“Tissaia!” a voice calls. Another figure jogs up to join them – a man, now, dressed in armor but reeking of magic. “We need you back. There is still more to be done.”

“What happened here?” Geralt asks roughly.

The man looks at him. “We held Sodden.”

Warily, he leads Ciri into the fog. Once he can see through it, he sees many more bodies, and soldiers he recognizes to be Foltest’s men wandering about, setting up tents for the wounded and picking up debris. There are people crying and coughing and piles of bodies. Ciri keeps her hair back and hood up, silent the whole time. From what Geralt can piece together, Nilfgaard attacked before the rest of the armies arrived, and the refugees and small portion of the brotherhood here had to hold the fort themselves. Nilfgaard has retreated, for now.

And there is no sign of Yennefer.

He asks a few people who look like they could be mages. The ones who know her claim they haven’t seen her in nearly two days. He knows the woman he met out front, Tissaia, probably won’t know either.

“Geralt.” Ciri whispers.

“Hmm.”

She tugs in his arm, and points off the west.

“There. there’s something there.” She insists. He looks off to where she’s pointing and sees a cluster of jagged rocks jutting out of the ground. It’s closer to where Tissaia was wandering. He looks up at her, and she nods.

Another one of her ‘feelings’, then. Which means if Yennefer is anywhere, it’s probably there.

They head off in that direction, and Geralt feels…something. Its close to what he felt yesterday, wandering into the woods to find Ciri with something tugging on his chest, legs moving almost without him knowing. He’s never felt that way with Yennefer before. He bound them together, but he never felt an urge to go to her. Never knew when she was near.

“Yennefer!” he calls loudly when they get close.

“Yennefer!” Ciri joins him.

Nothing.

“I’m sure someone’s here.” She says firmly. “I can feel it.”

He helps her off Roach and a passes a reassuring hand over the horse’s nose.

“Stay here. We’re be right back.” He promises.

“Does she really understand everything you say?” Ciri wonders. Geralt shrugs. It’s possible – she’s not exactly a normal horse.

There wander around the cluster of rocks, calling Yennefer’s name, for a few minutes before Ciri stops suddenly, expression blank. Geralt puts a hand on her shoulder.

“There.” She breathes, looking up.

It’s the tallest rock, really more of a very small cliff. The other side seems to be flatter, slopped, better for him to climb.

“Scream if anything happens.”

She rolls her eyes (because of course she knew that) and nods.

The climb isn’t as easy as it should be. His leg still hurts, a bit, but it’s nearly better. It takes him a second, but he does start to smell something familiar when he gets closer. He scrambles up faster, and nearly trips stopping short, because he can’t process what he’s seeing.

There’s a lute on the rock.

He smells Yennefer’s _elderberryrose_ scent she always carries with her, and he sees her, sprawled on the rock on her back, hair fanning out behind her, face dirty and blood on her dress. But he smells something else too, fresh cut grass and buttercups, fancy moisturizer that makes his nose itch so he always told him to _put it away_. He sees him, curled up aside her, on arm outstretched and gripping her ankle loosely, face on the smooth stone.

“Jaskier.” He breathes. He drops to his knees between them, heart beating faster than a Witcher’s should.

Yennefer groans.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He shakes them both, gently, and Yennefer stirs. Jaskier doesn’t.

“Yennefer.” He calls. Her lips twitch, eyelids fluttering. Maybe she’ll be fine, so he moves on to Jaskier, turning him over gently.

His face is dirty, like all the others. There’s blood smeared under his nose and coming out of his ears. He sees the same on Yennefer, who’s really moving now, coming awake. There’s blood on Jaskier’s fine clothes, too, a tear on his front that reveals a gash on his chest. But what’s most shocking, what brings more worry, is the lock of white hair stuck to Jaskier’s forehead by dried sweat and grime.

“Jaskier.” He hears Yennefer croak.

And then she’s sitting up, abruptly and out of nowhere, and yelping in pain. She blinks a few times, eyes unfocused, before finally settling her gaze on him.

“Geralt?” Her brows furrow. “What – Jaskier!” She leans forward. “Oh, you bloody _idiot_.”

He doesn’t know what to do.

Or what to say.

“Are you seriously just going to sit there staring at me? Get some fucking help, Geralt.” Yennefer snaps, hand pressing down on her stomach, over the spot of blood he saw. There’s a lock of white hair on her, too, just barely peeking out over her shoulder.

Right.

“What happened.” He grits out. She glances down at Jaskier and presses a hand to his forehead.

“I’m not entirely sure.”

* * *

Ciri looks up at where Geralt is now and feels…different. Everything’s not okay, now, she knows that. But something clicks into place anyway.

“ _People linked by destiny will always find each other._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know how many parts this series will have, but I have at least four more planned so it's not gonna be a short one.
> 
> Also i don't know if we ever learn what happens with Sodden and Nilfgaard and all that in the games or books so if this is inaccurate to that, sorry. Canon is taking a backseat in this one boys. I'm driving i make the rules.
> 
> Come cry over the Witcher with me on my [tumblr](littleredtheboy.tumblr.com).


End file.
